Boy, I can see that on a tombstone now. TOO LAZY TO GOOGLE.

Ms. Knipl is too good. I knew a kid named Joe Blow in third or fourth grade.

I’m guessing you are talking about the “west of the Connecticut River” part of the state.

Iona Knipl (pronounced “nipple”), chosen because of the obvious response when introduces herself. “Hi, I own TWO”. After marrying and divorcing, she took back her maiden name. She kinda liked it. (FWIW, Kinpl is apparantly yiddish for “loose change”.)

I like the name Iona. Iona is a synonym for “amethyst”. The name was popular between 1900 and 1920, but by 1930, almost nobody was being named Iona. Mom knew Iona Ford, who married a man named Carr, becoming Iona Carr. Her husband owned Carr Tractor Sales, which was a Ford Tractor dealership.

Hundreds of comments on the NYT story; most are interesting to read. A couple of people mentioned Harry Baals (mayor of Fort Wayne from 1934-1954, when he died, except for one term 1948-1951) but nobody spelled it right.

Another comment mentioned Joy Bang. I took a class at Defiance College in 1969 with someone of that name. Could there be two of them? (She was smart, funny, hot, and playful, and I think she was engaged. In any case, she was an upperclassman who didn’t know I existed.)

From “The Cruel Sport”, page 155, here’s Daley’s version, in a photo description of a crash scene:

“Above, two Ferraris speed past the burning, upside down wreck. Neither driver knows what has happened or who is hurt, perhaps dead. The head of the rookie driver, trailing, is screwed sideways, eyes trying to penetrate the smoke and steam. The veteran driver stares straight ahead. Later, he will answer in a flat voice, “What did it do to me? Nothing. Do I sound callous? I used to go to pieces. I’d see an accident like that and feel so weak inside that I wanted to quit, to stop the car and get out. I could hardly make myself go past it.
“But I’m older now. When I see something really horrible, I put my foot down, because I know everyone else is lifting his.”
Daley never revealed who actually said this, but judging by the particular model Ferrari, and rookie following veteran, I would think it was veteran Phil Hill, followed by Wolfgang Von Trips’ replacement after Trips was killed in the 1961 Italian GP; late ’61, or early ’62.

Plagiarism? I never saw or heard of any complaint from Daley, but that looks pretty blatant.

True story about Piper and his lost leg, Michael, but I’m not sure that crash was left in as McQueen’s crash of car #20. I have Michael Keyser’s book, “A French Kiss With Death” chronicling the making od the film, and the film crash is described as carefully staged with a hybrid Porsche-bodied Lola. Piper’s car was being filmed as it crashed, but it was much more heavily destroyed and was #21. No mention was made that it was used in the final film.

And, yes, Harl, your distinction drawn between newsreader and news anchor is appropriate, and supports the distinction between Schottelkotte and Clooney.

No reason. And I don’t mean to demean Al. But that’s the distinction I draw between “news reader” and “news anchor”. The newsreader stays in the building, while the news anchor goes out and covers the really big stories.

Harl, did you ever read Robert Daley’s “The Cruel Sport”?

I never heard of the book or the movie before this; I need to remedy that, apparently. Thanks for the recommendation.

I was reading earlier today that Jackie Stewart won 27 F1 races, but he saw 57 “close friends, colleagues and competitors” die on the track. Talk about a cruel sport!

From Grand Prix:

Jean-Pierre Sarti: Before you leave I want to tell you something. Not about the others, but about myself. I used to go to pieces. I’d see an accident like that and be so weak inside that I wanted to quit – stop the car and walk away. I could hardly make myself go past it. But I’m older now. When I see something really horrible, I put my foot down. Hard! Because I know that everyone else is lifting his.
Louise Frederickson: What a terrible way to win.
Jean-Pierre Sarti: No, there is no terrible way to win. There is only winning.

Mark – not sure about Speed Merchants; I have seen a late-60′s/early 70′s documentary movie about racing which included some fairly troubling scenes of people getting killed (including some hapless fellow darting across pit-lane, and then getting pitched high into the air by an incoming car, and then falling lifeless to the ground)….possibly that was it. Grand Prix and Le Mans are both excellent movies; they capture the colors and the appeal. (especially when they get to Monaco, for example)

The first morning I parked the car at Michigan International Speedway at Brooklyn, I smelled lots of charcoal-fired barbecues; and each time since, that’s the first thing I smeall. Now, on the rare occasions that I smell charcoal burning in a grill, I immediately think ‘RACE DAY’!!

You are correct on Grand Prix, Harl. I remember seeing it as a teen at a Cincy theatre when it came out. Nothing will equal that. I think it was in a quasi-Cinerama format, too, with a pre-Sens-suround audio. However, our 50 inch TV with a home theater setup and the dvd works quite well, considering. Interesting note on this movie: Harl, did you ever read Robert Daley’s “The Cruel Sport”? It came out in ’63 after Daley spent five seasons covering Formula One for the New York Times. Robert Alan Arthur got sole credit for the screenplay, but entire lines of dialog are lifted from Daley’s book. He got no credit. I think it’s a crime when you figure this book had to be Frankenheimer’s inspiration for the film. The title came from Dan Gurney’s comment after a colleague’s racing death: “This is a cruel sport…”. The film story is horrible, but the no-tricks-filming of the racing action makes it worth it.

EDIT: OK, OK, I, too, can’t believe I’ve spent all this time defending Al Schottlekotte!! It’s just that his impact on Cincy is permanent and undeniable.

I loved it when it came out, saw it recently on TV, and was so disappointed. A couple of days later, I realized why. When I saw it originally, the theatre shook when they’d rev the engines, and the screen was so big that you’d flinch when the cars drove straight at the cameras. It just isn’t the same on a 27-inch screen at volume levels suitable for keeping neighbors happy.

So, Harl, labeling Shottlekotte a mere “newsreader” does scant justice to a man who WAS news in the Queen City.

He had been at one time. By the late 1970s, he had become irrelevant, and it wasn’t any great accomplishment for Nick Clooney to become the #1 news anchor in Cincinnati – all they had to do was broadcast something halfway acceptable, knowing that eventually people would discover it.

What you didn’t say was that between those 20-30 second stories, there was a video glurge of about 15 still images each displayed for 1/30 of a second apiece. It was like staring at a strobe light or watching a bad movie about LSD flashbacks.

Walter Cronkite went to Houston or to Cape Canaveral for space shots. Dan Rather went to Nam, and he covered hurricanes while holding onto a street sign to keep from being blown away. Even Hilliard Gates went out to cover golf tournaments until he retired. Did Al ever leave the studio to cover news? In the late 1970s, it seemed like he was just reading stories that staffers had covered.